


ship of fools

by akisawana



Series: Steal Your Face [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Blood and Gore, Child Abuse, F/M, Individual Warnings In Chapters, Pre-Canon, Team STRQ - Freeform, Whumptober 2020, lannister-style incest, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 25
Words: 14,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26937277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisawana/pseuds/akisawana
Summary: Whumptober 2020. Raven-centric. Team STRQ post-graduation pre-kids. Individual warnings in chapters.
Relationships: Qrow Branwen & Ozpin, Qrow Branwen/Raven Branwen, Qrow Branwen/Summer Rose, Raven Branwen & Ozpin (RWBY), Raven Branwen/Taiyang Xiao Long
Series: Steal Your Face [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965553
Comments: 12
Kudos: 22





	1. Let's Hang Out Sometime/In The Hands Of The Enemy/My Way or the Highway

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my new fall tradition, namely beating the shit out of Raven Branwen. This is 110% pre-canon, so when they still loved her. 
> 
> Some parts cover multiple days. How much any given chapter fits the day's prompt is highly variable.
> 
> My only defense is that it's 2020.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Recon gone wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains the return of the Creepy Miniboss from last year, with all that entails.

Raven wonders if the miniboss did this on purpose or if Qrow is just stupidly tall. He's only about two inches off the ground; he can put his weight on his feet if he stretches his shoulders almost to dislocation, or he can dangle from the ropes around his wrists.

Raven would take the stretch, but his arms are stronger than hers, thicker muscle but less flexibility. He's better at taking pain than her, his wrists chafing, thin trickle of blood sliding down his forearm, highlighting the muscle in crimson mockery.

Raven would take the stretch but she's tucked in an iron cage, trapped as a bird, unable to transform. What would happen if it didn't break? She is too afraid to find out.

So she waits for Taiyang to find them, for Summer to rescue them, and she curses the miniboss that put her just out of Qrow's line of sight for one more twist of the knife, and she watches the blood run down Qrow's arm and wishes she could wipe it away with her thumb. Focuses on how much he must be suffering, how she will comfort him later, and does not think of the cold metal pressing between her own feathers.

"So then," the miniboss asks Qrow. "Who's this pretty birdie?" He sticks his finger in the cage as he asks, and Raven snaps at it mostly out of instinct.

Qrow gives a silent lazy shrug, which should be _impossible_ given his current position.

"Is it your pet?" the miniboss asks, wiggling the finger. Raven doesn't snap at it twice, afraid of retaliation.

Qrow snorts. It's a peculiar twin thing, how they don't panic at the same time. Usually it's Qrow flailing while Raven gets shit done but when she needs him, when she can't hold together for three minutes running...he steps up. Even when he's in his own personal hell of stone above his head and ropes biting into his wrists, even when she _knows_ he's too full of terror to remember his own name ... his voice is so light, so steady in the dimness. "I killed an unkillable fern in under a week. Got my money back and everything. If I can't manage a houseplant, what makes you think I can a bird?"

"Mm, then there's no reason to keep it around, is there?" the miniboss asked. Raven really should have picked up on his name by now. Has he noticed that Qrow is different this time, does he wonder why Qrow is smooth and suave as a movie-spy? "No reason not to snap its neck."

Raven can't stop the shaking, can't stop the rattling of feather-quills down her back.

"Or you could just let it go," Qrow points out, calm as anything. "It's done nothing to you."

"You care about this bird an awful lot for it to be a stranger."

"It's _an innocent,_ pal," Qrow snaps. Raven cannot see his eyes. Raven knows what they look like anyways, half-squinted and looking to the ancestors for patience. "Though I suppose you wouldn't understand."

The mini-boss opens the cage, and Raven tries to shrink back but it's too small, too small and she's dragged out by a foot anyways, held to dangle and maybe she should transform but he's _staring_ at her.

"Oh, I understand very well," the miniboss says, cradling her in his arms on her back, ready to be disemboweled. "How fast its little heart is beating. I think I will let it live, though- as long as you behave." His hand comes around her throat, tight, burning, and she makes a single desperate coo, tells herself the sound is so Qrow knows she is still alive.

Raven can't hear the questions, can't hear Qrow's answers, can't hear anything but her own heartbeat loud in her ear. She does not know what Qrow is handing to the miniboss in exchange for her life, she does not know the price of each ragged rasping breath. They thought he was a joke for so long, a sick joke of torturing her baby brother, but outside of that mostly harmless. Even Ozpin had sighed and muttered about sadism being blessedly inefficent.

It's working pretty damn well now, and she can feel his thumb pressing between her feathers, can feel how strong his hands are. How easily he could snap her neck.

She barely notices when there is a flurry of noise from the far side of the room, a green flashbang stealing sound and vision, spinning in someone's hands, perhaps falling. Trying to rise on wings she cannot feel, and through it all her heart wild in her chest.

Something grabs her, panicked flight to freedom halted by strong hands, and she lashes out without thinking, with beak and claws, futile and desperate, screaming defiance or perhaps pure terror.

"Shhh, Raven, _hrafn,_ " someone is saying, and she knows it is Ozpin. Only Ozpin has ever called her that, and it is Ozpin's chest she is cradled against, Ozpin's fingers combing gentle through her feathers. She cracks open one eye, looks up at his gentle smile, his pale face. "I have you," he says, soft like he's talking to a wild bird.

Ozpin turns, so Raven can see that Summer and Tai have freed Qrow, her baby brother draped over Tai's shoulder, Summer wiping his face with the hem of her cloak. "Let's take you two home."

It would be wrong to say that nobody has ever come after Raven. That she has been alone her entire life. It would be a lie, but more than that it would be a deep insult, to Summer and Taiyang. To Qrow. But she is the oldest, and she has hauled them out of the fire a dozen and more times each.

This is new. This is being carried in strong arms, this is a man's steady heart against her ear, this is the dizzyingly free notion that she need _not_ keep her hand on Qrow and her eye on Summer while she reminds Tai of all the little things that cannot be skipped. This is permission to bury her face against Ozpin's soft shirt, his fingers combing through her hair, and faith that when she lifts her head so he can wipe the tears from her face, she will not find some new crisis brewing.


	2. Punctured

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragging Qrow home from the bar goes wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains alcoholism and gore. 
> 
> Somehow Raven became team STRQ's medic in my head.

"Holy shit," Qrow breathes as he eases his thumb out. "Raven, I can actually _see you."_

"Thank you, little brother," Raven mutters. He can see her through the hole in Summer's arm, but she can smell him, drunk as the proverbial and twice as obnoxious. "Now get out of my way."

Between them, Summer groans, her face hidden in Taiyang's thigh as he strokes her hair. Tai's hands are better than any medicine Raven has in her bag, and she's grateful her boyfriend can give Summer that. Half because she loves Summer like the little sister she wanted instead of the obnoxious twit she got. Half because Summer needs to hold still. "This is why Raven's been sending him away all these years," Taiyang stage-whispers as Raven packs as much gauze in the tunnel as she can manage. She just has to get Summer back home without bleeding out, after all. "And here I thought it was because he'd throw up and pass out."

Summer does not laugh at that, just whimpers as Raven tightens the bandage. "We'll catch up," she murmurs to Tai, standing and opening a portal in one movement. Taiyang nods in understanding, sweeps Summer up and carries her through to Ozpin, who is statistically in much closer proximity to a hospital. Raven can take care of a lot of accidents with what's in her bag, and Aura covers plenty more.

But she's not going to fuck around with eighteen inches of rusty rebar driven through Summer's arm, by the weight of one drunk family fuckup. She snags Qrow before he can go through the portal, her fingers tight on his shoulders as she wishes they were around his neck. "What the _hell,_ Qrow? What happened?"

Qrow shrugs. "I tripped. She fell. Bad luck."

"Bad luck?" she echoes, "That's not bad luck. This is your fault."

"Like I said." He shrugs, reaching for the flask. His hand is shaking. "Bad luck."

"Don't start," she hisses, grabbing his hand, forcing it down. She never makes him watch her patch Summer back together, and it's got nothing to do with his semblance and everything to do with the shadows at the corners of his eyes. It's never been his fault before. "How much did you drink?"

Qrow shrugs again.

"You have to stop making us do this," she says, she begs. Before something worse happens as they drag him home. She can think of so many worse things. "Why do you keep doing this?"

She doesn't want an answer, not really. She doesn't want to know what he's drowning in liquor. Doesn't want to know if his demons are stronger than hers, or if he's just weaker.

Qrow sighs, and turns away. Summer's blood is on his shirt. Quite a bit of it. Raven hopes it will stain, hopes it will stare accusingly at him, hopes it will make him _stop._ But she knows it won't, knows she'll be kicking her heels against the washing machine while he scrubs it out with salt, knows she'll make sure the last traces are gone. And maybe a little bit because she knows that guilt won't make him stop, it'll just make him drink more, faster, hide it better. Mostly because even when he's the family fuckup, even when he's almost putting out Summer's eyes with his drunken shenanigans, he's still her baby brother and she cannot stand to see him hurt.

"Qrow," she says, and he turns to look at her, and he's bracing to be screamed at, bracing to hear how disappointed she is. Things she's tried, and Tai's tried, and Summer's tried, and _nothing works_ and Ozpin is less than zero help. He crosses his arms, and it's not defiance, it's hugging himself, it's shame, it's fear and pain and all the things she wants to protect him from. He won't look directly at her, and she has no words.

She has no words.

Raven realizes, in the half-light of the moon, in the half-destroyed building, that she cannot save him. She is not strong enough, and the knowledge sweeps through her bones like silver snow, like fever-sweat. She is not strong enough to save him. Summer and Tai, Oz and Glynda, they'll give up on him one day if they haven't already, and she is not strong enough to save him.

"Stop hiding from me," her voice says, and she does not know what to do, does not know how to reach him. "I swear, I'll never tell you to stop drinking, if you just stop hiding it from me."

Raven is not a doctor, not even a fully-trained medic. All she knows how to do is stabilize her teammates, keep things from getting worse. Take the situation that presents itself and keep it from getting worse. Accept the situation in front of her and keep it from getting worse.

"Raven," he starts, and she puts her hand over his mouth, puts her hand out to steady herself before she topples.

"If this is what you're going to do," she says, shaking her head, "I won't ask you to stop. Just."

She cannot force the words out. She cannot say _I will set this world on fire to keep you warm._

He unfolds his arms, and wraps them around her, and she does not know who is comforting who. Summer's blood is on their hands and she does not care, alcohol heavy on Qrow's breath, heavy as all her sins, tears on her face and his knives in her heart.

"I'll never ask you to stop," she promises. She'll never ask him to choose.

She fears what would happen next.


	3. Where Do You Think You're Going?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boundaries, and their importance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains dramatic irony

If Raven is good at one thing, it's knowing when to cut her losses and run. How to keep herself safe. How to rescue herself.

And sometimes the urge to take off is so strong, she can't fight it, though she never tries very hard. She can always come back to Summer, to Tai. To Qrow. They cannot go where she cannot follow. No matter how far away, she can be at their side (in their arms)in a heartbeat.

Why not, then, when the ceiling is too low and the walls too thick, spread the wings Ozpin gifted her and disappear in the trees? Why not, when there are too many people and too many cars and too many _noises_ fade into the shadows, wrap herself in darkness and slip away?

After all, she can always come back to them. Will always come back to them. There's a saying, she remembers, about wolves and packs.

She'll come back, don't they know? She'll not stop Qrow from going to bars and Summer from surrounding herself by chattering idiots, she'll not complain when Taiyang combines them both and goes to the disco. She'll never breathe a word of complaint as they abandon her. Raven just doesn't wait for them to get around to remembering her.

Raven will come back when they stop hanging around places they know she hates. It's healthy, she thinks, to have boundaries. Ozpin talks about boundaries a lot. It's better this way, he says, for them to have little bits of their lives that they don't share, little pieces of the world all their own. Cities for the boys and Summer surrounded by small children, and Raven in the quiet wild dark.

Sometimes it's not them leaving her. Most times, really, it's her needing to find somewhere quiet enough to hear herself think. It's her separating from them, drawing lines bright as happiness between them. Carving away sister and lover and friend, and still having something left. Something that is just her, just Raven, independent of the rest of her family.

It's running, and it's returning, and it's long black feathers and red silk petals, and it's always small and cold and never very long before she returns, before she slots back in where she belongs.


	4. Please...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raven gets sick.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, I had to pull so many permits to write this in the first week of October 2020. Hopefully it ages well.
> 
> Contains severe pneumonia, graphic description of medical procedures, and someone at a hospital not having a good time. The staff is all chill, though.

"Please," Raven begs, her eyes bright with fever, with tears. "Please, just. Tai, I can _feel_ it."

"I know," he says, quietly, wrapping his hands around her wrists. Her skin burns. There is a needle taped to the back of her hand, into the back of her hand. That's not what he's afraid she'll pull out, though she's already done it twice. "You can't, though." He brings her hands to his mouth, kisses her fingers one by one.

"Qrow would take it out for me," she sulks, pulling away from him. She is absolutely correct; Qrow is constitutionally incapable of saying no to her. That's why Qrow is outside the room and down the hallway, with Summer on his legs. That's why Taiyang is here, siting on the edge of her hospital bed, keeping her from pulling off the monitors, ripping out the tube nestled between her ribs. Raven is half out of her mind with fever and drugs, and it's more than Qrow could bear, to force her to stay here.

Tai swears, sometimes, he's the only one on his team capable of thinking farther ahead than his next meal.

It started with a cough that Raven hid with copious amounts of menthol drops, with exhaustion she passed off as the natural consequence of their job, with her aura working triple-time to keep her looking healthy for gods alone knows how long before she just stopped breathing.

Summer's epipen in her thigh, almost as soon as she hit the ground, and Taiyang will never forget the fear in Raven's eyes, wide as a child's, will never forget how weakly she clutched his hand. Summer told him to stay with her, and he did through the ambulance ride he barely registered, praying that they were not too far away from help. Thankful they were in the city, at least. Raven's lips blue, and he'd heard of that but never seen it before, and tears standing in her eyes as they carried her off, shouting numbers that had no meaning to her.

Tai kept calm and patient and kept his feet quiet as he followed her, pretending not to hear when they tried to stop him. Until the steroids hit and gave Raven the strength to bolt, straight into his arms with two black eyes and a broken wrist for the three who got in her way. Gasping against his chest, and he locked his arms around her and silently pleaded with the doctor to give him just one chance.

"Let them help you, Raven," he'd said, and she'd clung to him, and he promised "I won't leave you," and she'd allowed him to lead her back to the bed. The doctors let him stay, mostly.

"I'll be fine," Raven says now, back to pleading. The medicines give her such mood swings. Being trapped, maybe, is worse. "Tai, I always am, I just need to sleep in my own bed."

Which means Qrow's arms, and normally he doesn't begrudge them their weird twin bond, but he draws the line at letting her die. Letting the pus build in her chest, squeezing her lungs tight and tighter. Letting her heart speed and weaken and fail. She'd been so close already, and if she didn't understand the language of doctors he did enough for both of them.

He pushed her hair back from her face. "No, Raven," he said, holding her gaze. "You won't."

"Can't you, at least, take it out?" she begs, her fingers wrapping around the tube. Tai unwraps them, folds his fingers around hers. The plastic is warm, from the hot liquid being sucked out of her chest.

That should have been the worst part. But she'd sat up and raised one arm, half naked, her other hand trying to cover her breasts in futile modesty. Tai rested his chin on the edge of the bed, his hand cupping the back of her head, their faces close together like Qrow does for her. She'd whimpered, able to feel the pressure if not the pain, as they made the incision, as they stuck their fingers inside her body, and she held very still, and he'd told her how well she was doing and Qrow would have never been able to sit there and watch her bite her lip.

But it wasn't, as bad as it was, it wasn't the worst part. This isn't either, waiting for the medicine to work, watching the bags empty so slowly into her veins, watching the lines on the monitors go up and down and Tai doesn't know what they meant but the lights are all green. Even as Raven alternates between begging him to rescue her and cursing him through her tears and what fitful nightmares sleep the steroids allows, this is preferable to before.

"Please, Tai, please, I can't do this anymore. I can't stay here anymore." Raven is openly weeping, clutching his hands as she repeats the litany she's been chanting for hours. She swears she cannot and yet she does, she keeps breathing, she is surviving, she is flushed and sweating and her pulse is racing under his fingers.

"You can," he repeats. "You can, Raven, you have to." He wishes he could hold her closer, but her body is a battlefield he cannot join, this is not an enemy Qrow's body can shield her from. This is not even a wound he can press his hands against, waiting for her instruction.

Raven is almost a proper medic, rare on a team of hunters with unlocked auras. Because back in the tribe she grew up in, there were no doctors, there were no hospitals. There was her little brother who got hurt, a lot, and not a lot of people besides her to care if he was okay. Raven learned young, and Raven learned well, what to do with what she had, but there was so much she's never seen before.

Raven knows what an x-ray machine is, of course, she's been in front of one before. But there were other ones she'd only heard of, ones she'd never even knew were possible. Loud tubes she slid in that Taiyang could not join her in, and strange plastic wands digging into her skin. The worst was the hands, though, Taiyang could see it in her eyes. A blind man could have seen it in her eyes.

The doctors and nurses were kind about it, respectful. Asked her if she'd be more comfortable with only other women. Let Taiyang stay, let him hold her. Waited for her to nod and let them see her bare, let them lay their hands on her body. It didn't matter, even though they did nothing wrong. Raven still had to let complete strangers touch her, still had to hold still and allow it, and that was the worst.

She'd begged him, to make them go away, and Taiyang almost did. Qrow would have. But Taiyang wasn't going to let her die, and he knew from the words they chose that there wasn't another option, there was barely time to ask her.

"Please," Raven said then, "please," she says now, "please don't make me," but that was too close to "please let me die," and Taiyang isn't going to let that happen.

It begins his own prayer too, whispered when she was taken away for tests, when he was forced back to make room at her side. When she sleeps sweaty and hot against his shoulder. _Please, let her forgive me._


	5. I've Got You/Where Did Everyone Go?/For The Greater Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the last twenty years, Qrow has only ever managed to do one thing right: keep Raven safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains implied child abuse, the enmeshed dumpster fire that is the twins, and dramatic irony.

They have an agreement, Taiyang and Qrow. If Raven falls asleep somewhere, which happens three times a week at least, only Qrow is allowed to move her. In return, he doesn't cut Taiyang's hands off and stuff them down the back of his shirt.

(Taiyang smiles and nods and agrees, because he speaks Branwen pretty well these days, and he knows that means something happened Qrow cannot bring himself to speak of, that somewhere there is a man who deserves to lose his hands.)

Only Qrow is allowed to pick her up, when she is soft and warm from sleep, cradle her against his chest with her breath damp on his neck, and leave. Tai's allowed to carry her at her most vunerable, when Qrow is too weak to do more than follow, Summer allowed to touch her at her most helpless when Qrow cannot stop her, but only Qrow is allowed to take her away.

He's been doing a pretty good job of keeping her safe, lately. It's the only thing he's ever been any good at, the only thing he hasn't ruined. The one thing he can be proud of. He's a hot mess of whiskey and assholery and misfortune on a good day, but Raven is mostly-okay, and that's enough. Even when she stirs in her sleep, jostled by him reaching for the door, all he has to do is murmur, "s'okay," all he has to say is "I gotcha" and she settles back down, her hand curled in the collar of his shirt.

Raven brushes his hair out of his eyes in the mornings, and she tells him she is proud of him, and that is all he needs.

It's not all he wants. He wants Summer to press bread and honey in his hands and he wants Tai to collapse face-first in his lap trusting Qrow to give him relief. He wants Ozpin calling him for the really bad shit and he wants children to smile when he draws near.

But he can live without those things. He cannot live without Raven, without her safe in his arms, without the way she fits against his body, two shattered pieces waiting to be held together by molten gold, by liquid silver.

It has always been this way, the two of them against the world cold and cruel. Raven sharing food with him, only him, him the only blanket Raven has at the first frost. Alone, even in the middle of the tribe, even in the city and the school. Set apart, from their own team who cannot understand how terrible it can be. Who must be protected from how terrible it can be.

Ozpin meets them halfway, sometimes. Ozpin meets them halfway but sometimes they retreat from him, back away from promises of home and honor. They do not trust him, they do not know what would ever make Qrow trust Ozpin to carry Raven out of his sight. Qrow wants to trust Ozpin, but every time he tries something rises thick and cold in his throat, something made of dread and stale tobacco. He wants to trust Ozpin but he needs to keep Raven safe.

(What if Raven had to choose between Oz and Qrow? Qrow could survive any wound, but the day she tells him good-bye is the day that he dies, the mere thought enough to drown himself in whiskey and rye.)

He's always kept Raven safe, as far back as they can remember he's the one that stepped forwards and took the blame for the cup she broke, the food she burned. He's the one that volunteered for the very worst jobs, returned to her bruised and bleeding and she'd wipe the blood off his face. Qrow is the one who stands behind when she runs and Qrow is where she runs to and Qrow has already burned so much of himself in supplication.

It's worth it, worth every blinding morning hangover, worth every nauseating nightmare, every scar he is too ashamed to explain to Summer. It's worth it, when his hands shake and his eyes burn and he slides to the floor a failure. Qrow would give up anything for her, give her his girlfriend and the last tattered remnants of his conscience and his right eye.

Anything and everything, so she cannot leave him.


	6. They Look So Pretty When They Bleed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains blood.

It's Tuesday, so of course Raven is soaked to the elbows in one of her teammate's blood.

Taiyang has become supernaturally good at dodging, since that first day of school. Qrow has finally grasped the concept of parrying. Her boys manage to keep all their blood inside their bodies almost every day.

Summer makes up for them, and more.

Raven is not Tai, she is not qualified to parse out what combination exactly of more dangerous missions and recklessness caused the uptick. She doesn't know why she finds herself, again and again, pressing white bandages against Summer's skin until red soaks through and blooms into roses dark as rubies.

So near her eyes, some lunatic with a knife trying to snatch them out of her head. That's Qrow's problem now, Qrow trying to find out who put out the hit. Qrow is very very good at asking questions. Even if he wasn't, he wouldn't be where Taiyang is, wouldn't be holding Summer still as Raven tries to damn the flood.

Head wounds always bleed like hell, and it doesn't necessarily mean that Summer's concussed. Maybe she's just very quiet and very still as her blood soaks into Raven's clothes, into her skin, hot copper in her mouth. If she can smell it, that means there's little droplets of it in her nose, Summer's blood in the wrong body. It came out in spurts, splattering with every beat of Summer's heart, and Raven is no good at estimating volume, never was. She's running out of clean cloths to pile on top, needs both hands to keep the pressure and one of Tai's besides.

It's Tuesday, and Raven is soaked to the elbows in Summer's blood, and it never gets any easier.


	7. Psyche 101

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains: Consensual non-con . Exposure therapy by someone without a license. Incesteous corvid femdom.

Raven tightens the rope, makes a note of the time. On the bed, Qrow swallows, and she can hear his breath slow and measured and deliberate. He pulls, but Raven's done it properly, and he cannot free himself. Raven sits on the bed next to him, and he closes his eyes and she almost wants to call the whole thing off.

But this is his idea, his desperate plan to cure his fear once and for all. It's a liability, he argues, a weakness they can ill-afford. Summer and Raven don't think of it that way, and Taiyang only ever shrugs, says they can work around it.

Ozpin had sighed, when Raven brought the plan to him, when Raven asked him to talk Qrow out of it. Ozpin sighed, and told Raven Qrow's instinct wasn't wrong, and offered to teach her how to do it. When Raven pointed out that Oz could just not put him in the miniboss' way, Ozpin had fixed her with that gravedirt-brown stare and asked if that would stop the nightmares.

Qrow's shirt has five buttons, that Raven has sewn back on six times apiece or more. She doesn't keep track. Instead she undoes them with one hand, laying his chest bare and exposed and she can see the quick sharp jerking of his ribcage as he loses control of his breathing, can see the panic rising in his cheeks, red blushing down his throat. Raven lays her palm against his heart, feels it hammering fit to burst from his chest, slides her hand down to brush the top of his pants and back up in a circle, and she tries to force her own lungs into the rhythm. It doesn't work.

She trusts Ozpin, when he says it will help. She trusts Qrow, when he says it is helping.

Raven makes another circle, and another, waiting for Qrow to settle again. Another and another and another, until they've found equilibrum. One more button, on his pants, and inside he is soft in her hand. She is gentle with him, still. Qrow wants to work up to pain, to dark bruises and spilt blood. Raven will have that fight later; this is hard enough. Her mouth is dry as she presses her lips to the tip, as she tries to spark something other than animal terror in his nerves.

Ozpin hadn't been so specific about this. Just a lot of big words, like recontextualization and desensitization, habituation and extinction. Smaller words that meant the same things, like practice runs and training. Qrow's body thinks that rope around his wrists means only one thing, and he cannot stop the reaction by willpower alone. Raven's trying to teach it that there is more than one possibility, that he doesn't need to reflexively struggle and panic. That it won't always hurt. The miniboss has never crossed this particular line, and it seemed a clear enough path to Qrow. Or a desperate thread to cling to.

Qrow whines, low in his throat, face hidden against his own arm as Raven clicks open the lube bottle. "Watch," she tells him. He does not open his eyes.

Still, biology cannot be denied, and she knows very well how to trigger the reflex, how to wrap her slicked fingers around his cock and stroke it to fullness. Qrow is very still under her hands, and Raven keeps her hands soft as she can, leans over his chest and scatters kisses over his skin and wishes she had words.

Oz hasn't sent them against the miniboss for weeks. Raven doesn't care about who he might be hurting. Qrow claims to.

In the light, she can follow the arousal under Qrow's pale skin, knead it a little farther up his body, draw it out best she can, and Qrow is rigid under her and she cannot imagine how this is working. "Changed my mind," he breathes. "Raven, I'm done."

This, this is the hard part. They agreed, days ago when they started, reconfirmed minutes ago before they began, that she will not stop when Qrow says to. That she will ignore when he says no. That when he begs and pleads and screams for her to stop she will keep going. _Magpie_ is the word, the point at which he truly hit his limit, and the hope that each time it's pushed a little farther back. Until then, she is teaching him that when he cannot make it one more minute, he can grit his teeth and survive thirty seconds, and thirty seconds more.

Until then, he is learning that when he says _stop_ nobody is going to listen. Relearning.

So Raven moves her hand faster, slides around to straddle his thighs. She can't quite take him like this, can't make herself warm and wet while he's swallowing down sobs, choking on the word _stop._ It's too close to her own nightmares, to the bag of memories she sewed shut long ago. But Raven can keep her face blank and her hands steady, can tuck her hair behind her ear so she's not washing lube out of it later.

Such a mundane detail, as Qrow's head tosses back and forth, as he chants _no, no, no, don't_. Raven leans forward and swallows down when he says _stop_ , says _let me go_ , says _don't touch me._ He can endure. He has not said the magic word, and so she ignores his ragged protests, keeps going.

Qrow is iron-fear and copper-blood on her tongue, the long line of his throat soft and vunerable against her teeth. His hips jerk in the air, searching for more friction, and that is a tiny victory, the triumph of lust above fear. His pupils are blown, turning his eyes to dark pools of want rimmed by blood, and for half a second no panic floats across them. That is the point, and so she stops moving, holds him on the edge as long as they both can manage, locked together and Raven wonders which of them will break first.

How is that even a question? It is Raven, it is always Raven. Qrow grits his teeth and endures long past the point where tears have gathered in her eyes. Raven slides down his body and takes him in her mouth, dry as a Dust mine, and the lube tastes like mangos. She licks it off, chasing the taste, cleaning it away until there is only Qrow warm and bitterly familiar, pressing against the underside with her tongue, forcing her throat to relax as she swallows him down deep as she can. Above her he has lost the power of speech, reduced to the growls and coos of the forest, the harsh pants and high alarms of prey.

"Magpie," Qrow croaks, and Raven scrambles to the head of the bed, grabs the emergency loop and pulls before he can say it twice. The rope unknots itself, and Qrow lunges into her arms like she's fallen into his so many times, so cold under her palms and she spreads them over his back, tiny futile blankets and her fingers slotting between the bones of his spine.

He is weeping against her collar, and she lets him, holds him. Murmurs praise in his ear as she checks the clock. Qrow is so strong, so brave, and she reminds him of that. Already the horror is fading away for her, leaving only her baby brother, and the rawness of his spirit, and her hair falling around him, hiding him safely away from everyone but her.

"How long," he asks, eventually. Demands, when Raven doesn't answer. "How short?"

"Seventeen minutes," Raven replies. Four more than last time. Not nearly long enough.

He nods, rests his sweaty head against her neck, his fingers tight on her skin but still gentle. "It is getting easier," he says. "I swear."

"Then we'll keep going," Raven says. It's easy for her, even as it hurts, not like how Summer refused to even try. It's not frightening, how easy it is, like Taiyang who finished a single scene and then spent a long time in the shower and did not offer to do it again.

If it's helping, if it keeps him from waking up screaming, she'll slice her hands to ribbons piecing together the broken glass of her baby brother.


	8. I Think I've Broken Something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon-typical levels of common sense. Heterosexual tomfoolery.

"I don't like this," Raven says, shifting her weight from foot to foot. There's not much she can do about it. She's got magic humming under her skin, loud enough to be heard by the enemy inside.

"I'll take care of him." Summer's eyes shine in the moonlight, steady and honest. "I'll keep him safe."

Raven trusts her, she does. But bad luck can happen to anyone. Even if Qrow is keeping watch high above while Summer and Taiyang sneak in the back door.

No magic and no aura, no sound and no comms. Complete dark as the two of them move inside the crumbling ruin, and Raven waits for the signal, and wishes she had something to occupy her hands.

The glittering stars wheel across the sky. Raven knew all their names, once. Had to, so she could find her way back home. She never cared much for the stories behind them, only how they marked where she was, where she needed to go.

The bright dog is two fingers over the horizon when Qrow gives the signal, trilling high squawks of alarm as he dives down to meet the other half of their team. Raven has her sword out, portal open before she can hear Taiyang's labored breathing, before she catches a glimpse of Summer's cloak. They burst into the clearing, Tai's arm around Qrow's shoulder, Tai's face pale, but shining with triumph as he waves the tchotchke at her.

Summer's hood is over her face, and she does not say a word as she goes through the portal first: just because it's to Ozpin doesn't guarentee the other end will be safe. "What happened?" Raven demands, but Summer doesn't answer.

"Bad luck," Taiyang says with a grin as Raven comes to his other side, takes some of his weight. She refuses to look at his ankle, refuses to look at the way his foot is shifted, like misaligned pixels, like a broken doll. "See," he continues when Qrow looks down. "It happens even when you're nowhere near. It's not your fault."

Gods above and below, Raven loves this man, this dragon, this bright sun at midnight. Bleeding and broken and yet still standing, not playing tough to make life hard later -but also making sure to take care of her baby brother. Leaning on her, and trusting Raven to take some of his weight, but no more than he has to. They have a balance, the three of them as they get Taiyang over the threshold and into the clean bright clinc. The three of them have found a way that works even as Summer flees.

Summer, Raven will forgive. She'll not blame her. She'll even trust her again, once she's remeasured the limits.


	9. Breathe In, Breathe Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my favorite thing ever, Qrow in an oxygen mask.

"Sorry," Qrow mumbles for the twentieth time. "Will you forgive me?"

"Put the mask back on," Raven answers, for the twentieth time.

The only thing worse than pest control missions is helping track down bad guys. What Ozpin considers a bad guy and what Raven thinks counts are two entirely different things; most of the time it's just people trying to get by the best they can, people who cheat because someone else stacked the deck first.

Then there are the other ones, the people they agree need to be stopped. Those people are the worst of the worst, lairing up in mazes of ruined buildings, rigging perimeter alarms and poison gas booby-traps. Those people are so terrible, Qrow can take a double-lungful of burning green smoke and he'll still find it inside himself somehow to push through, find the guy in charge and splatter his brains across the wall. Ozpin's going to have some things to say about that, maybe. Maybe not, once Raven tells him what they found.

Now Qrow is lying in a hospital bed, _again_ , and the shine has really worn off this situation. She's been here, so many times, sitting in the chair by the window chaining together tiny invisible stitches seven threads apart. She is no longer impressed by the years of study from the doctors and nurses, the decades of engineering in the medicine and the machines. Now every time she finds herself under these lights she feels like she's drowning in thick bright light, the air too cold, too dry. The beeps are no longer reassuring. Now they are banal and irritating, as she pushes the needle between the weave.

Raven isn't mending, for once. She's piecing together a quilt, a flower garden of greens and browns and golds. Why bother patching the holes in Qrow's pants when he's just going to rip them open again, playing hero? Why bother ever getting up from this chair, when she's just going to be sitting here soon enough, perhaps next to Taiyang, perhaps while Summer sleeps.

She is very tired.

On the bed, she can hear Qrow's breathing, harsh and heavy. The mask is tight against his face, and she cannot see his mouth through it, can only see his eyes sleepy and satisfied. Qrow's always measured his worth in the blood he sheds to keep other people safe, and today he is very valuable indeed.

She'll forgive him, of course, by the time he can take the mask off and still breathe without coughing. Until then, she'll watch his face pale under the plastic, watch his chest rise and fall and stutter, try not to think about what they would have done if not bring him here. What would have happened to him back home.

If anyone back home is worth this.


	10. Found Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was trying to set Raven on fire but then this happened.

The Branwens aren't just bandits. They're not a motorcycle gang, they're not organized criminals. They are a _tribe_ with customs and traditions and culture. Despite what the huntsmen who come to kill them and steal their children think.

(despite what Qrow thinks.)

A lot of people are adopted into the tribe, but that doesn't make them less family. Plenty adopted when they're older, but kids too. Taken because they have nowhere else to go, taken in so the tribe will continue.

For a long time, Qrow and Raven were the only children. There was a raid, a couple months before they arrived, huntsmen and huntresses coming to kidnap and murder and burn. "They're afraid to be hurt again," Jenny told her, the burn scars wrapped around her arms like snakes, smooth and shining in the firelight. "Losing children hurts more than anything."

Then there were more children, trickling in one by one. Raven put herself in charge of them, remembering too well when she and Qrow were small, when nobody really kept track of them. Remembering the time she'd been forgotten as they fled from Grimm and Qrow searched for three hours before he found her.

(she'd hidden really well. he was the only one who came back for her.)

Qrow helped; he had a gift for keeping track of who needed what and who wasn't speaking up and where the safest place to stash them was. Qrow was afraid to spend too much time around them, for fear of hurting them, but not everyone in the tribe could see why they kept kids and Qrow didn't dare go too far in case he needed to educate someone.

Raven never minded wiping faces and cooking dinners and lighting candles to keep away monsters. It took strength, it _proved strength,_ to care for the weak, and the doll she found for Colm meant she had more than enough for herself and Qrow.

(meant that one day, Colm would remember the kindness she showed him, and repay her.)

But it was also hot heavy work, and she didn't realize it until they came to Beacon, until there was only herself and Qrow to look after. Summer needed a sharp eye, and Tai needed a heavy hand, but there were only two of them and she didn't have to spend nearly so much time taking care of their physical needs. She hadn't realized how much time she spent cooking or washing or any of the thousand other little things small children needed until she found herself with absolutely nothing to do at Beacon on Saturdays.

(nothing to do, no favors to earn, nothing to bank for the future.)

Now Tai makes promises and she wants to believe him, but he owes her nothing.


	11. Nightmares/A Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's choking, of the domestic-violence variety.
> 
> PSA: if someone chokes their partner in anger, that's like. The biggest red flag to get out before you get killed. Look out for each other, and remember people can be very different behind closed doors.

They're in a tent with too many corners, with too high a roof, and the light is bright electric, no fire. There are no shadows for her to hide in and Qrow's hand is tight around her neck and his eyes are too blue.

"Please," she whispers, and she can feel every beat of her heart squeezing her throat closed. "Please, Qrow." She scrabbles for his wrist, presses her fingers into his skin and holds on for dear life. "Please don't let me go."

"You're just dead weight," he says, and she can feel tears in the corners of her eyes, glimmers of silver nothing like Summer's. "You're not worth the trouble."

She can't breathe and her chest is burning acid, her feet are dangling, it's too bright and his eyes are too blue and his hand is too strong too harsh. "Please, don't leave me," she begs, lets the tears fall, because maybe if she cries pretty enough he'll change his mind.

"Weak," he hisses, "you're so weak and needy, always wanting me to do everything for you." Raven sobs, and he keeps going his voice echoed by a chorus of long-dead men whose sweaty grasping fingers she'll never forget, reminding her that she's helpless and ungrateful and doesn't deserve what they've given her, that she owes them more than she'll ever be able to repay. "What would you do without me?"

"I don't know," she screams, tries to, but there is no air in her lungs, there is no ground under her feet, there is neither sun nor moon in the sky, only Qrow's nails digging into her skin sharp enough to tear blood out, and she welcomes the sting because at least he's still there. "I don't know, I need you, please don't leave me, please, please Qrow, I need you I can't, I need you-"

Raven wakes up and someone is _touching_ her and she flails out with closed fist before she fully realizes it's just Qrow she's knocked off the bed.

Like she's done so many times before, she bursts into tears.

"Easy, easy," Qrow says from the floor, and she only looks at his face long enough to confirm his eyes are red as the blood trickling from his lip before hiding her face in her hands. "You were just dreaming."

The mattress dips and suddenly Taiyang is there, smelling like sunflowers and sawdust, his arm warm and strong around her shoulders. "We gotcha," he says, "I gotcha."

She looks up, and Summer nods silently to her, dabbing at Qrow's lip with a tissue. Summer will take care of him, and so Raven can bury her face against Taiyang's chest, let his hands drag heavy and real through her hair.

In her dream, Qrow had Taiyang's eyes. Qrow had Taiyang's _hands_.

How long will it stay a dream?


	12. I Did Not See That Coming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains implied racism. Originally Ruby was going to be a wolf faunus, y'know?

Summer's noticed that Raven and Qrow collect things.

Qrow has an affinity for anything smooth, river-worn stones and scraps of satin ribbon, tree-nuts and lugnuts, and the longest Summer's ever seen him sit still is honing a blade. Raven plucks things that shine out of thin air, coins and shotgun shells, sharp-edged glass and oyster shells with rainbows trapped inside. Qrow collects matchbooks from bars, and Raven snips every picture of flowers she can get away with. Raven has a string of buttons longer than she is tall, and Qrow lines up seeds in strange shapes along the edge of his dresser.

They're from Mistral, even if they grew up outside the kingdom. They're from Mistral and it's even odds neither of them saw a Faunus before they came to Beacon.

They collect other things, too. Qrow reads anything that holds still long enough, and when he wanders off she's as likely to find him in a bookstore as a bar. Raven only needs to hear a song once to learn it, to hum it under her breath when she bends over her work. Both of them love stories, and Taiyang teases them about it mercilessly as he tells them the same ones his parents tucked him in with.

Summer will sing for Raven, if nobody else is around, and Raven asks. She's a terrible singer but she remembers the words, and Raven keeps the beat with her foot.

Not everything they collect is so innocent, so childish. Qrow has a half-full jelly jar of other people's teeth, and he won't explain where they came from but most of them are broken and blood-stained. Raven keeps photographs in a fireproof box in Ozpin's office, and when she adds a new one she holds it between the tips of her fingers like a dead rat or live snake.

The only thing Summer collects is scars, starting with the one at the very base of her spine, so old and faded she doesn't know if it's even still there. She doesn't dare ask.

Taiyang has taken upon his shoulders the thankless tiring task of civilizing them, reminding them that in Vale one does not, traditionally, slurp noodles or announce to the entire room that someone has gained twenty pounds. They're not as bad as some people; the rules in Mistral are very different sometimes, and outside the kingdom walls all bets are off. They're worse than some people; Raven in particular likes to make people squirm, Qrow has no patience for those who offend him in whatever obscure way.

Their favorite thing to collect is secrets. Qrow will sit at a bar and listen to deals being made in the back rooms, Raven with her mending seems blind to the world on a park bench. They lurk in shadows and around corners, invisible and patient and so much cleverer than either will admit. Summer hears them, in their nest at night, trading data points, building pictures. Qrow is better at making connections, filling in blanks. Raven has an almost preternatural sense for which one of his wild theories is right.

They're more bird than human, some days, and they've been like this as long as Summer's known them; Ozpin laughed once that giving them wings was merely formalizing an old truth. They collect anything that catches their eye, bring it to their favorite people. To Taiyang, to Oz. To Summer herself.

They tell Summer everything, or almost. Some things they won't speak of; sometimes Qrow shakes his head and presses his lips together, sometimes Raven sniffs and says to ask again when she's mad enough to hurt Summer. Always for her sake, never for their own. They trust her, Taiyang says. Trust that she's seen their worst, that she loves them anyways.

There is just the one thing that's never come up. The thing Summer doesn't talk about. She wants to believe they won't care, that it won't matter to them. And since it won't matter to them, why say anything? It's not like she's _really_ a Faunus, after all. She doesn't even remember what it felt like, to have a tail.


	13. Panic! At The Disco

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> with apologies to Sei Shounagon.

As for Qrow, he is the easiest. Rope around his wrists, stone pressing down over his head, the hollow click of those old-style padlocks. These things send him into screaming animal panic, fighting desperate tooth and nail to free himself. Qrow is the hardest, for if it is not pressing those very specific buttons, he can set his jaw and endure anything, everything, spite seeing him through the rare times his loyal heart falters.

As for Raven, it never lasts. She flees, at the first inkling of something wrong, something beyond even her capable hands. She opens a portal and runs, to Taiyang's arms, to Qrow's, tucks herself safe inside them.

As for Taiyang, it is eternal. The fear steals his sight and breath, leaving him frozen and numb. He loses the ability to mark time, to hear Summer's words. He makes no sound, sheds no tears, his joints lock up and he cannot even crumble. He becomes only his pulse, raw and burning, coming in waves until the tide goes out and he can open his eyes once more.

As for Summer, it is an old friend, the kind that only calls for bail money. It makes a ghost of her, seperate from her body, makes the world flat and unreal. It is physical and nauseating, her hands clumsy as she moves them from far away. She does not know why it hits her differently, why she can keep going even as her team falls back in fear. She does not know why it tastes like oranges.


	14. Broken Hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains blood and Qrow's marvelous coping skills.

When Qrow goes down, well that's just Thursday and Raven will worry even though he always comes out all right. When Summer goes down, that's a battle won with silver eyes and she'll wake up in the morning dehydrated but that's nothing orange juice can't fix. (Qrow insists on calling them virgin screwdrivers, which Tai personally finds hilarious but the girls give him identical glares.) When Tai himself goes down, he's not personally witnessed it but he's heard about it later. Heard how that's when Raven falls apart and Qrow pulls himself together enough to take care of her.

Raven's not supposed to fall.

She's supposed to be too quick, too skilled. Too good at escaping by teleportation or transformation. She's supposed to be safe behind Qrow's sword, under Taiyang's shoulder. They're supposed to take care of her without mentioning she is technically the weakest of the team, on the battlefield. It's okay, to be the weakest of STRQ is still to be stronger than any number of hunters put together. It's okay, because while she may be the weakest in a fight she more than makes up for it in the aftermath.

Taiyang is supposed to protect her. Qrow is supposed to protect her. They failed.

Ozpin is sitting with her on the sixth floor, because she would never let one of them be alone in the hospital and Summer needs to sleep at some point. Tai took the first shift and spent the second back at the house, making sure she wouldn't come home to a disaster zone.*

Qrow won't go to the hospital. They're lucky Qrow is in the kitchen, kept there by a bottle of whiskey and Ozpin's most disappointed face when he dragged Qrow home. Qrow won't come within half a mile of Raven, and he claims it's because of his Semblance but Tai knows better. Qrow's misfortune only runs about a hundred and fifty meters, two hundred on a bad day. Ozpin found him three hours south as the crow flies. If it weren't for Ozpin, neither Tai nor Summer would have seen him until Raven made a portal. Until Raven could make a portal.

Tai leans against the doorframe and sighs. Usually Raven does this part. No, usually Qrow's the one in the hospital, and Raven's with him. Or Summer's the one hurt and Raven's with Qrow. The point is Taiyang doesn't have to try to comfort his partner, usually.

(At least this is something to do besides remember how Raven looked in the bed, still and pale, dressed in green-grey gown and iodine-stained bandages. Besides remember how scared Raven had been last time, how she hated strangers touching her, how she kept trying to flee even though she could barely walk. Remember how cold and limp her hand was in his grasp.)

"Hey," he says, knowing better than to sneak up on Qrow even if Qrow doesn't acknowledge his presence. Tai puts his hands on Qrow's shoulders, looks at the tumbler Ozpin had poured. The ice is half-melted, there's still some amber whiskey at the bottom, but the bottle hasn't moved.

Tai never thought he'd see the day when he wished Qrow had drank more. Qrow drunk and mopey he can handle; it's a simple race to get him in the general vicinity of a mattress before he passes out. This is ... something else. "C'mon, Qrow. Bedtime."

Qrow sighs, but Tai doesn't move, squeezes his shoulders. "Raven would want me to take care of you until she comes home, you know. I'm not going to let her down."

Like a magic spell, Raven's name pushes Qrow to his feet. Taiyang hopes he won't have to invoke it too much tonight. He steers Qrow towards the bedroom, makes Qrow take off the pointier bits of jewelry before allowing him to fall on the mattress. The lights off, and the window cracked in case a stray bird comes by, Tai's armor folded down properly and an extra blanket from the chest at the foot of the bed, because Qrow is always cold.

Qrow does not say a word, but when Tai lays next to him, he curls against him, and that is more than Taiyang expected. He draws Qrow closer, like he does with Raven, because they might as well be the same person sometimes so why wouldn't this work the same?

(It never really works with Raven either.)

Qrow shift and fits himself against Taiyang's bulk until they're pressed together from shoulder to ankle, and Qrow worries at Taiyang's collar the same way Raven always does. But he doesn't hide his face like Raven does, and there are no tears in his eyes. "She'll be okay," he promises, tracing the seam of Qrow's shirt, down his side.

Raven was a hundred and eighty meters away from Qrow, give or take a few. Not enough to say with any certainty it's his fault. Not enough to say it's not.

"This isn't the first time," Qrow says, or maybe what he says is, "this isn't the worst time." He smooths down Tai's collar, wrinkles it again.

"We'll help you take care of her." If there was any justice in this world, Qrow's semblance wouldn't be misfortune but kinetics, would be the power to take every blow and turn it back tenfold. Gods know he's taken enough. How many times had he sat alone, before they came to Beacon, and kept Raven with him through sheer desperation?

Qrow shakes his head, doesn't say anything. He is, impossibly, still cold against Tai's skin.

Taiyang doesn't know what to say, so he doesn't say anything. Just keeps his hand moving over Qrow's back, keeps his eyes on Qrow's face. Qrow stares back, mutely pleading for something Tai can't understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Originally I had "epa superfund site" here. Do you think they have those?


	15. Toto, I Have A Feeling We're Not In Kansas Anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like last year's had more warnings.

Glynda mentions it offhand, once, that if Raven wants to go to med school, she can. Raven bites down on several unkind words, before simply saying no.

Saying no is a new thing, and Raven tenses, flicks her eyes to make sure she has a straight shot to the door. Ozpin, behind Glynda, catches her eye and nods. This isn't an order phrased as a polite suggestion, this isn't bait for some trap she suspects but does not see. Oz can put a lot into a simple nod.

Glynda's hand hovers over Raven's shoulder, a silent offer, but she does not touch Raven without permission, she never does. "If you do not want to, that's one thing," she says, and from her tone it's clear she doesn't think that's the case. "If you do, we will help you. You only have to ask."

Raven knows what that means. Ask, because Glynda is not psychic; Glynda does not want to hear Raven grovel. And for a minute she thinks about it, thinks about going back with Professor Goodwitch at her back, a terrifying force to anyone who would try to stop her, a gentle nudge when Raven tries to stop herself. It would be hard, all the reading and writing and memorizing, exams and formulas and long sleepless nights of study. It would be possible, with her team's help. It would make Ozpin proud. It might even make Qrow proud.

"I don't want to," Raven says, her mouth dry. "I never wanted to learn...I only did it because I had to."

And that is the end of it, never mentioned again.

Raven never wanted to, but she had to. Had to patch Qrow up when he was bleeding and bruised, when he rolled over in the middle of the night and stuck his head out the egde of the tent and puked. Had to, because so many of it was her fault, for her sake. Had to, because nobody else would.

The whole tribe had to rely on stolen medicine and a questionable medic who'd lost one too many patients. Raven learned from him best she could, using Qrow as her practice dummy. Some of the men joked that was the only reason they'd waste supplies on Qrow, and when Jenny heard she just shook her head and told Raven she was a good sister, better than Qrow probably deserved.

(Which was not true, but Qrow had _also_ managed to trip her, sending the entire basket of laundry she'd just washed flying into the mud, so he wasn't exactly Jenny's favorite person at the time.)

Plants were the worst, and the best. There was something magic in making medicine out of leaves and honey and mushrooms powerful enough that a handful would last her six months and more. It was something Qrow couldn't do, something that took care of him like he did her.

It wasn't enough to save Robyn.

She'd asked Qrow to stay home, when they took Robyn to the hospital, to be the other end of her portal. She'd asked Qrow to stay home, because he was fond of the little girl with dark hair and purple eyes and so Jenny had told Raven to find some excuse to not let him come.

(Jenny always was just nice enough to Qrow that Raven could forgive the rest.)

Raven had done her best, under Dufrense's questionable eye. She'd packed the wound with boiled-clean rags, gave Robyn ibuprofen and acetaminophen alternating from their dwindling supply. She drained the pus with a needle passed through fire while Qrow sat outside the tent with his head between his knees, and she brought Qrow dinner because he didn't want to leave Robyn alone.

It wasn't enough, and when red lines began crawling towards Robyn's heart, Jenny knew what had to be done.

Raven trailed after Jenny as she carried Robyn to the town, to the hospital, and she stuck close to her in the place lit up bright as day. Stayed near Jenny when people in white coats and green scrubs took Robyn away, sent the two of them to a room with bad coffee and uncomfortable chairs and very old magazines.

"Normally I'd leave now," she said, handing Raven a steaming paper cup, "but you're old enough to learn."

Raven, twelve years old, had no idea what she was talking about. Raven, twelve hours later stepping through a portal to Qrow from a foster home, knew far too much, and when she told Qrow how they'd taken Robyn away, how they'd declared Jenny an unfit guardian and stolen Raven away too, it was between tears. They'd taken Robyn for _help_. Clearly they cared about Robyn or they wouldn't have brought her, right? Qrow patted her back, finger-combed her hair like he always did, promised her that they couldn't take him away from her. Raven knew that, cried harder. Her baby brother was the center of her world -but he wasn't her whole world, wasn't the only person it hurt to lose.

Jenny caught up to them a few days later.

Robyn they never saw again.


	16. I Don't Feel So Well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a great disappointment to me. I'm from Detroit, I should have done _better_ with hypothermia.

"Hey, hey, Raven, stay awake," Qrow muttered, his breath cold on her cheek. She shook her head, tried to burrow deeper into Tai's warmth, but she was already as close to him as she could get.

"Stay with us, _lao po_ ," Taiyang adds. Raven doesn't know what that means.

"Can't leave," she mumbles into Taiyang's chest. He's on the bottom, keeping her from touching the cold ground, and Qrow's draped over her, covering her from the chill of the unheated shack. They're pressed skin to skin to skin, Summer's cape draped over them like a blanket while their team leader has gone in search of help. Raven couldn't really escape either of them if they put their mind to it, let alone if they were working together. "Don't wanna leave." The sandwich isn't exactly warm, nothing is warm this high up on the mountain, but she has the two of the three she loves most in the world around her, and that's enough. That has to be enough. That's all she's getting.

Above her, Qrow shifts, twists, manages to get out his flask and take a nip. Tai feels her wince, moves his thumb in patterns over her skin, but neither of them say anything. The last thing they need is the roof collapsing, and if Qrow's Aura stays low his Semblance won't lash out. Normally Raven tells him no, that they are too good for a little bad luck to get in their way.

Not now, with her aura broken and she's too cold to feel her feet, which is a blessing because she's pretty sure half the bones in her foot are broken and she doesn't have enough aura for a portal which is a moot point because even if she could her fingers are too numb to hold a sword. Not now, when she is supposed to be their exit strategy but she has condemned them to freeze with her.

Qrow presses a kiss to the back of her neck, like he used to when they were small and he was the only blanket she had. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries not to cry. She can't imagine how cold tears would be, frozen on her skin.


	17. Do These Tacos Taste Funny To You?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains datura poisoning. Also massaman curry is delicious and I want some.

A couple years back, Qrow had ... well, he couldn't really remember what led up to it but the point was, he spent two days seeing snakes. His memory was hazy, but he remembered watching them slither across the floor, across the ceiling. He remembered Raven's arms around him, remembered Raven promising to keep him safe, remembered Raven keeping him safe. Not the most fun night of his life, but not the worst.

That title was reserved for _this._

Silver eyes make Summer a target and she's half Raven's size and if Qrow finds out who paid the inn's cook to spike the food he's going to burn them _alive._ Silver eyes make Summer a target but Raven was changing out of ripped tights and so the cook thought the curry was for Summer, added who knows what to it, and enough cumin to cover the taste.

(Massaman curry is the only kind Raven likes, and she had been so surprised to find it on the menu here, and she had been _happy,_ why isn't Raven allowed to be happy?)

Now Summer and Tai are tracking down the people responsible, even though that's really Qrow's specialty. But this is his, too. This is setting his jaw and enduring, cool water on Raven's skin even as it burns, holding her in the dark as she trembles and jerks in his arms. Tai's fingers were gentle in her hair, earlier, but he cannot follow her rambling and cannot let it go, and she snapped at him so fiercely before slapping away the spider that wasn't coming down his arm. Summer managed to get her to eat a little charcoal, but Summer's eyes are too bright and Raven cannot bear to look at her.

What the charcoal was for, Qrow does not know, but the town's doctor seemed to think it would help. She'd has a syringe of something, too, comes in every hour on the hour to check on Raven and see if she needs more. The exact details escape Qrow; Raven is _terrified_ of the doctor, who does not look human to her eyes, and he was far too occupied with comforting her to absorb any information. Doctor thinks it will help, doctor knows that if it goes badly Qrow will hang her from the nearest tree in warning, beyond that Qrow doesn't care.

The rest is up to Qrow, wet rags and cups that Raven can't spill, protecting her from people they have not seen since they laid on the funeral pyre. It is up to Qrow to wake her, make sure she _can_ wake, wrap his arms around her while the doctor makes sure she'll live another hour. It is up to Qrow to cover her eyes and promise her that she'll be safe, and when he does that his heart breaks at her response every time.

"But who's got _you_ , little brother?"


	18. What's A Guy Got To Do To Get Some Sleep Around Here?

Dating Raven is _exhausting._

And it's not because of Qrow, even though they're joined at the hips, even though Qrow is the poster boy for emotionally high-maintenance and Raven always puts him first. It's not because she's stubborn as century-old tree-roots and relentless as the typhoon. It's not because she only has a nodding acquaintance with the niceties of civilization like dishwashers and takeout.

It's the screaming in the middle of the night, and she can't help it but that doesn't magically give him two more hours of sleep. It's the hours of talking her down when something puts the hair on the back of her neck up, convincing her she's safe. It's keeping her from going off half-cocked because someone _might_ have done something slightly disrespectful and she doesn't quite realize that's not a life or death matter anymore. It's childhood trauma piled upon generational guilt wrapped up in coping techniques that make Qrow's drinking look healthy.

It's never calling her out when she's wrong, because that will rip half-healed wounds open. It's never raising his voice at her, even accidentally, double-checking every word coming out of his mouth. It's bouncing from crisis to crisis with her, and it's never her fault and half the time she pushes him away. It's forever cleaning up the mess someone else made inside her head.

But she's worth it.

She is.

Tai swears.


	19. Stitches

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains blood. A moderate amount of blood. You may have noticed I am terrible about warning.

Raven is not squeamish about blood. She never would have made it to thirteen if she was. Nor does she have a problem with sewn wounds. She hates doing it, but she doesn't have a problem with it unlike some birdbrained little brothers who will remain nameless who think a splash of whiskey and a torn-off shirtsleeve is good enough for everything up to and including visible intestines.*

Raven is physically unable to watch someone else put stitches into her. Doing it herself is out of the question. And Qrow still thinks the first thing to do is dump a shot of 120-proof whiskey directly on the wound.

Raven grits her teeth and holds her breath and squeezes Taiyang's hand. Qrow isn't _wrong_ but now she's going to smell like a distillery on top of everything else.

She can hear Summer pacing, keeping watch, and a small cold part of her wonders if she's looking _for_ monsters or just _away._ She squeezes Tai's hand harder, hard enough to make her hand tremble, to pull a curse out of his mouth. Her whole world narrows down to Tai's hand in hers, and Qrow's hands steadier than hers ever are, and Summer hovering over Qrow's shoulder, out of Raven's reach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Thankfully, this was part of a theoretical discussion, because if Qrow showed up anywhere like that Raven would kill him herself.


	20. I Think I'll Just Collapse Right Here, Thanks/If You Thought The Head Trauma Was Bad...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raven gets hit in the head _real_ hard

Raven slashes the portal open, rolls through and transforms, and her head hits the back of the sofa hard enough to make her teeth click together. She cannot hear, the blow still echoing in her head, she blinks at the green shape in front of her but can't bring it into focus.

She thinks it is saying her name, as she slides to the floor, as it catches her.

Something stirs in her chest when she's cradled close, and she cannot put a name to it, only the feel of coal-black feathers soft over her skin. There are more words, and she thinks she answers as she buries her head into a scarf that smells like cocoa and time, like safety, like home never did. Hands gentle on her skin, in her hair, and she whimpers, flinches away from the touch when it finds where all the blood is coming from.

_"Hrafn,"_ Ozpin says. "Where are the others?"

Raven shakes her head. "Still there," she hears herself say. She was too weak to keep up with them, taken out of the fight early. "I'm sorry," she says, because it is Ozpin and she can and she cannot remember why she can tell him but not her own team.

Ozpin lifts her, lays her on the couch in his office while a thousand miles away her team fights and bleeds without her. For a minute or a lifetime she simply exists, she simply _hurts_ , she is free to hurt without worrying about anyone else. She thinks there is something cold pressed against her hair.

"Raven, hey," Ozpin says, gentle as the moon and as far away. There are other shadows, behind him, and her eyes still refuse to focus. "A portal, please. Just one, and then you can rest." Raven nods, needs his hands to pull herself up, leans against him on shaky legs. "Just a portal, for them to go through," he says, as she fumbles for her sword, tries to reach out and cut through, but it's so hard and she knows the rest of them can do it without her deadweight dragging them down.

Ozpin wraps his hand around her wrist, helps her raise her sword. "For your brother," he says, and she sort-of hates how much power invoking Qrow gives anyone and everyone over her. "Send him some help. Glynda will bring him home, if you get her there."

Oh, Raven finally realizes the people Ozpin called in are armed. Are hunters. One of them is Glynda, and she is always surprised that her eyes are green and Ozpin's aren't. Glynda is a little scary, like Raven wishes she was, scary enough to make people feel safe. Okay, Raven understands now. There are three more people behind Glynda. Raven is pleased that she is worth an entire team.

Oz steadies her hand as she finds finds Taiyang's aura golden warm, finds Summer's silver eyes, finds Qrow's heart beating in time with her own a thousand miles away. There is so much between them but she cuts it all away, wills it to not exist as her soul seeks them out. Everyone says semblances aren't magic, but maybe hers is, to make the impossible real and a doorway to her family that Glynda leads them through.

Then Raven sags against Ozpin. "Thank you," he breathes, and "I'm so sorry," and she does not know for what, does not know anything but his fingers cool in her hair and the couch cushion under her cheek, and the throbbing waves she cannot put a name to and the light burning out her eyes until she falls into blessed darkness, far from pain.

She thinks, perhaps, someone kisses her forehead.


	21. Okay, Who Had Natural Disasters On Their Bingo Card

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains an earthquake

It comes out of nowhere, the very ground shaking, and Raven does not know what is happening, thinks it's her body trembling until the bottle slides right off the table and spills across the floor across the room, water racing in sharp zigging rivulets across the floor as she falls to her knees. Around her things are falling off shelves and tables, and she watches frozen until the water makes its shaking shuddering way to her legs. Only then does she remember, the thing she's heard of but never seen before now, the thing that always seemed so ridiculous.

_Earthquake._

Somewhere, glass is breaking as the world turns upside down and the very floor is moving. The ground, which is not supposed to move, which is the root of stability. What is she supposed to do, when the most fundamental basis of reality has changed?

There is a mighty crash outside, and the lights in the room pop dark like gunshots, and Raven decides this is not something she's dealing with. Too scary, she needs her boys to keep her safe.

Taiyang catches her as soon as she steps through the portal, and it is dark where he is, the floor is still moving, but he folds his arms around her and he is steady. A second portal and Summer comes through on Qrow's back, her aura sparkling silver around her ankle, and Raven very carefully does not think about what they would do without her bringing them together in the dark and the chaos, while the earth moves like the sea.


	22. Stoic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains non-specific blood and canon-typical density. Like mother, like daughter.

For all that Raven is protective of Qrow ninety percent of the time, when he's hurt she does not seem to care.

No, that's unfair for Summer to think. Raven does care, deeply. It's in the way she paces when she's not allowed by his side, the way she sits next to him while he sleeps, the way she fusses over him when he wakes. She takes care of him, when things are normal, but when he's recovering, she downright spoils him, as much as he'll allow anyways.

It's just this part right here where Raven seems, to Summer's eyes, cold and unfeeling. When she's smearing burn salve over the raw weeping flesh of his back, her face blank and her only words clipped directions for him to turn this way, look that way, hold still. When her hands are quick and efficient, and she never shies away, never even hesitates. Never touches him more than necessary.

_Summer_ hesitates, tries to pick out where he'll hurt to be touched the least. This time it's easy, since there's only the one small wound (this is what living with Branwens does, she considers any wound within the span of her hand _small_.) Easy for her to thread her fingers through his and squeeze his hand, brush his hair out of his eyes to see the shadow of a smile the act brings.

All the little things Raven does for Tai, that she does not do for Qrow, and Summer does not know why.

Qrow doesn't seem to mind, Raven's ungentle hands, or Summer's lips soft against his knuckles, or Tai's infrequent grip on his knees. He just keeps very quiet and very still, his breath slow and even and deliberate, and Summer has never seen him flinch.


	23. I Think I Need A Doctor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains wild headcanons and fungal pneumonia

Qrow can sleep anywhere, Ozpin is pretty sure. He knows how a young man comes by that skill, and some of the ways are even pleasant.

Qrow is currently facedown on top of Raven's sickbed, pinning her legs and three blankets under his weight. Ozpin is inordinately proud of himself, for Qrow would only be doing that if he trusted Ozpin. There are precisely four people who have seen Qrow truly sleep, rather than pass out or be drugged. It is a rare and precious gift from his newest son.

It is not one that Raven is appreciating, poking at Qrow's shoulder. Qrow sleeps on, or pretends to, refuses to move, keeping Raven where she needs to be.

If Qrow is the Beacon champion of injury, Raven is its reigning queen of illness, having managed to catch what seems like every germ that travelled around the school, six separate viruses that most people are vaccinated against before they start school, two bacterial infections not previously known to be endemic to Sanus, and this latest round of fungal pneumonia. Ozpin hadn't known such a thing existed.

Qrow blames himself, usually, and his semblance, no matter how many times Ozpin tells him that it's not his fault, how many diagrams Glynda draws. Perhaps the initial exposures are his fault, Team STRQ does seem to have more than its fair share of colds, but Qrow's semblance cannot override Raven's free will, cannot cause her to make the choices she does. Ozpin loves Raven as much as any child of his body, but he cannot deny she can be _fucking stupid_ when she puts her mind to it.

Every time. Every single time, Raven tries to ignore it, tries to push through it. Doses herself with whatever will hide the symptoms, forces back the ones she can't hide through sheer willpower. Every single time, no matter how many times someone tries to explain to her why she should just take a few days to rest, she puts her Aura up and charges full steam ahead.

Until her Aura-charged immune system cuts her legs out from under her.

Then they end up here, in the hospital, Raven half-panicked and someone needing to be with her every second or she'll disappear. The staff all know that "visiting hours" don't apply to Raven, to let Taiyang come along with her even when he's not supposed to. That Summer drinks sugar with some coffee for color so stock up and that Qrow's presences means double-check everything because he's not going anywhere.

It's frustrating, doubly-so because Raven hates it so much. Raven hates hospitals, hates being trapped, hates strangers touching her. Raven hates sitting still. Though perhaps hate is not the right word. People hate hangnails and traffic jams. This is something else, this is dark and primal, this is self-fulfilling prophecy and self-sabotage.

So Ozpin keeps his patience, even when he wants to snap at her. Sits with her, even as she fusses and complains worse than a colicky infant, reads to her while her eyes droop heavy and dull. He lets the business of school and governing fall by the wayside, for what could be more important than this, his youngest daughter?


	24. Now Where Did That Come From?

After every battle, Taiyang runs his hands over Raven's skin, over her bones. It's not that he doesn't trust her to mention if she's hurt...but he doesn't. Summer does the same to Qrow, he knows, their Branwens stubborn birds who refuse to admit weakness, who are so fragile under Tai's palms.

"I'm fine," Raven murmurs against his lips as he slides his hands up the back of her shirt, just firm enough that it'll only hurt if she's hiding cracked ribs. She says she's fine, but she's said that so many times, lied so many times, Taiyang doesn't believe it anymore.

In answer, he pulls her closer against his chest. There is a wound in her he cannot reach, a half-healed slice on the back of her heart, dripping slow. Perhaps a little slower since the first time he saw her in the forest, angry and fierce and so very very lovely. He'd thought, back then, she was beautiful the way a scar was beautiful. And he wasn't wrong.

Taiyang loves her, and he reminds himself of this as he kisses her, deep and slow, he does love her, and if it was easier he wouldn't love her so much, and it's not her fault she came to him broken and bruised, and he reminds himself it is a privilege to find each hidden wound on her soul.


	25. Today's Special: Torture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Contains child abuse.

Very few people unlock their aura on their own.

Qrow was one of them.

He was ten years old, stripped naked to the waist, his forehead pressed against the whipping post polished smooth by the sweat and the tears of those who'd been here before. His wrists already raw from the rope binding them, his eyes squeezed shut, and he willed his knees not to shake. He couldn't hear around his heart pounding in his ears, refused to look around, braced himself best he could for the whip whistling through the air, tensed to take the blow and

Instead pins and needles rippled across his skin, shimmering lattice of numbness, the air from the whip ruffling through his hair but no blow came. No pain. No skin splitting open under sharp leather.

Just his skin cool and dry, and Raven's high clear voice arguing that it counted as one. Counting two, three, four more, up and up as the whip licked over his back with no more force than a feather, a hundred lashes and he did not feel one, and the grin fit to split his face as he stayed strong.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.


End file.
